


how we belong

by charcoalsuns



Category: Free!
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 02:30:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4246056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalsuns/pseuds/charcoalsuns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just one day of many.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how we belong

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, darling prince. <3

The sun has stepped well into the sky by the time Haru opens his eyes. He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, watches the bubbles that speed upward to break the still surface of his bath. The slight spray tickles his nose. _It must be time soon_ , he thinks, and lets the thought fleet away into the warm, bright air. _It isn’t time yet_. 

When the side of the tub starts to press into every bone along his spine, Haru sits up a little. Water drips from the ends of his hair, landing as soft and purposeful as rain behind him. The tiny cascade seems to patter off the walls, too, blue and grey tiles melting into white to form the smooth, reflective inside of a seashell. A tree branch nearly sways through the open window, its leaves waving lazily in the morning breeze. 

There are two particular droplets that hold Haru’s attention now. They balance side by side on the precipice of a squared edge, ready to tumble over themselves to rejoin the rest of the clear water around Haru’s knees. 

He knows the feeling. 

Haru isn’t expecting the ring of his doorbell, but he was waiting for it, and the sound calls gently down the hallway, just once. 

_Ah_. 

_One more time_. 

He tilts his head back and lets the water embrace him. He looks up at wooden boards, their lines shaky and rippling above a breathing, shimmering surface, and waits for a scrape, a voice, a hand, all as familiar and calming as the scent from the sea.

 

\--

 

Gulls circle overhead, keeping time with the waves that collapse over each other to spread out onto the beach. Makoto glances to his left, over the top of Haru’s head, and marvels as he always does at the movements that never stop, even when the ocean looks as drowsy and ready to crash back to rest as he feels on the earliest of mornings.

The sky is fair and wispy today, a well-worn cloth spilling a sea of glittering jewels from its folds. It opens inviting palms, filled to the sandy brim with crystal pinpricks of light and the promise of cool, refreshing weightlessness. Haru is already diving in, twisting and gliding beyond Makoto’s reach, though his steps do not stray from their parallel paths. 

Makoto begins to talk. It helps, he knows, to have someone else’s thoughts woven through his own, to follow their threads at right angles until he feels solid again. Ran and Ren let him out the door after only five minutes of farewell hugs today, and as he recounts the morning’s brief tussle over the last spoonful of eggs, Makoto watches the unlined focus around Haru’s eyes turn quietly and soften. 

He smiles, and tells Haru about one of the interesting passages he came across in their literature assignment, a hidden level of their shared video game that Sousuke stumbled into a few nights ago, a family of multicolored cats that have taken shelter in boxes piled near the docks. The corners of Haru’s mouth turn very slightly upward when Makoto remembers that Rin will be coming to practice with them today, and Makoto knows his answering happiness as simply as his own. 

The two of them have walked these steps so many more times than Makoto would ever try to count, but the waves at their side continue to tumble endlessly onto the sand, and the peace that settles in Makoto’s chest feels as light as sea foam in his hands.

 

\--

 

Rei stretches both legs out after a few delicious bites of spinach and cucumber, letting out a sigh as his knees unbend. The shade granted by the overhang doesn’t cover the full length of his legs – the red edges of his shoes, tilted forward into the warm sunshine, are just a few shades away from the brightness of the tomatoes in his bento.

Nagisa and Gou are currently engaged in another of their verbal duels, this one a rematch over the nutritional value of Iwatobi cream bread; or, more accurately, the nutritional value of two cream breads versus zero. Makoto is trying valiantly to calm them both down, his placating hands and soothing tone as much an adopted role as the cheerful arguing that peals across the rooftop. Any effectiveness in his appeasement is spoiled by the giggles sneaking out through his words, anyway. Rei hides his smile in a piece of carrot; sitting beside him with a bit of mackerel balanced quickly between chopsticks, he suspects that Haru does the same. 

Rei wants to join in. With the exception of perhaps one, Gou’s opinions are very sensible, and his own concern for Nagisa’s health matches the admonishments she pitches with admirable strength toward those five misguided layers of sugar and refined grain. He waits for his pulse to rise to the occasion, a list of ingredients darting just beneath his tongue, but it doesn’t. His heartbeat remains steady and soft. He can’t quite bring himself to add his raised voice to theirs, not at the moment. 

_Haruka-senpai_ , he thinks, and the realization is as inexplicable and wonderful as a single butterfly alighting on the delicate skin between collarbones. Numbers and concepts that he’s run against a stopwatch in his brain all morning have become a timeless ebb and flow in Haru's company, reassuring him in quiet, even breaths. He wonders if this is how Haru feels, when he looks at the sea.

 

\--

 

Haru doesn’t ask Rin to swim with him so much as he turns his head enough to meet Rin’s grin and raise an eyebrow in return. He doesn’t wait for an answer, either, before he crouches and leaps in a single fluid motion that has never failed to set a thrill sparking through Rin’s veins.

Rin no longer watches Haru and the focused ease of his stroke through sakura-tinted goggles. Only possibility glints in his mind, now, only the most realistic kind of optimism. He’s going to take on the world, and as he looks out over the waiting lanes of the pool at Iwatobi High, he hears the faint, treasured echo of young splashes from five years and one near-demolition ago, filling his limbs with the strength of every minute he’s lived through since then. 

Nagisa cheers. 

Rin dives. 

At the exact moment he draws even with Haru, they both speed up, and they fly – side by side, through the turn and to the finish. Their hands hit the wall too close to tell, an unknown that Rin has grown to love. 

Gou and Rei have looked up from their restructuring of Rei’s training schedule to watch Rin and Haru swim. At their smiles, a kind of warmth spreads outward to gather in the palms of Rin’s hands, in the arches of his feet. It’s a little like pride, a little like satisfaction; mostly, it’s a lot like happiness. 

Practice is unofficially over, and the sunlight fades gradually but surely from burnt-out orange toward the scattered, recovering glow of dusk. Still, Rin thinks as they agree to another go, he’d gladly swim with Haru until the moon appeared to light their paths instead. 

Or until Makoto bodily pulls them both from the pool.

 

\--

 

Rin finally manages to shake Nagisa off his shoulders and boards his train, departing with a grin and a careless hand raised to the brim of an imaginary cap. Nagisa stretches as high as he can reach while his feet still touch the ground and waves back with both arms, careful not to hit Makoto in the face. He calls his goodbye across the tracks and covered platforms, like Rin holds the handles of suitcases, not just the strap of his duffel bag, like Nagisa can’t send him a picture of a gourd that looks like the side of a shark’s nose and receive a reply before he goes to sleep.

It makes their next reunion all the more precious, Nagisa finds, though that might just be the glimmer of bright gold in the joy he cradles between his ribs, every time he thinks of his friends and the amazing things they continue to do while he isn’t with them to see. 

Rei presses a yawn to the back of his wrist. Before he can excuse himself, Gou does the same, and the resulting chain leaves the five of them laughing sleepily at each other as they sway a little in the cool breeze. The first stars appear in the deepening sky, winking their hellos toward the lit windows and streetlights of Iwatobi. 

Haru doesn’t move at all when Nagisa nudges his cheek into his arm. He keeps his head tipped back and his hands at his sides, and each blink of his eyes reminds Nagisa that there are more constellations than those with names, only waiting for someone to draw them. Nagisa has been doodling in the margins of his notebooks for years: hopping penguins and menacing one-eyed spirits, dolphins swimming unafraid and free from captivity, a world open to his questioning footsteps and longing for adventure. He thinks he can give his drawings names, now. 

“Haru-chan,” Nagisa says, lifting his head from the back of Haru’s arm. He hugs Haru’s elbow instead. “Let’s work hard tomorrow, too, okay?” 

“Yeah.” Haru doesn’t look away from the stars, but his voice grounds itself in Nagisa’s ears, and it’s all the acceptance he needs.

 

\--

 

Steam rises from Haru’s freshly heated bath in clouds that dissipate before they can touch the dark grain of the ceiling. New clouds drift upward in their place, each layer getting closer than the last. The warmth filling every corner of the room presses against Haru’s skin, soothing his tired muscles, and he reminds himself yet another time to keep his eyes open. More than once he’s fallen asleep in his bath, and as much as the idea still appeals to him, Haru has learned that it really isn’t as comfortable as he wishes.

When the steam has slowed into the faint whisper of a breath, he pulls himself from the tub, dries, and steps into his sleep clothes. A faded screen print of a cartoon anglerfish stares upside-down at him from the front of his shirt, eyes wide and jagged mouth gaping. Haru remembers the card that came with it and smiles, just for a moment. 

He’ll rest well tonight.

 


End file.
